Author Topic: Is Altium free anywhere?  (Read 12356 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Offline tszaboo

  • Super Contributor
  • ***
  • Posts: 8218
  • Country: nl
  • Current job: ATEX product design
Re: Is Altium free anywhere?
« Reply #50 on: May 16, 2023, 02:30:28 pm »
Kicad more or less killed Eagle (with a bit of help from Autodesk though) and several other low end PCB design packages. And Altium will be next in a couple of years. Altium may have a lot of features but the bugs and extremely low performance make that Altium sits between a rock and a hard place. It is too expensive to do simple boards with and it is not good enough for complex boards. Every SoC reference design I have come across is made using Orcad.
KiCAD is OK, and it improved a lot sine the beginning. And it's possible to compete with altium in the "let's connect the dots with lines without crossing" parts of the software quite easily, but that's not what Altium is about, and it hasn't been for a while now. Right now I'm reviewing my ECN procedures, because (I think) it's quite possible that I can automate the whole thing in Altium, saving hours of work for the tiny "let's change a capacitor" kinda changes, automatically informing the people implementing it, and all without me copying the same info over and over again. And while it's still compliant with regulations.
So sure, you can make green things in Eagle, or even in KiCAD, but when you want to automate documetnation, buy components, keep supply chain functional, they are miles away.
And the IC design companies are going to use Cadence software because they get it basically free due to the other tools they use. But TI uses Altium for example.
No Altium is not free, nor cheap. 2k$/yr for individual is a lot.

Just assume people borrow Altium from work, etc.
What makes it so good or useful,,, or niche, that a program is worth that much....and per year ??
I don't know, how much do think an engineer costs while spending a thousand hour learning a new software and messing up a board because some silly mistake?
 

Offline hans

  • Super Contributor
  • ***
  • Posts: 1698
  • Country: nl
Re: Is Altium free anywhere?
« Reply #51 on: May 16, 2023, 03:27:17 pm »
Or the cost/salary of an EE engineer. Can easily run 100-150$/hr. 2k$ license = 13-20 hrs max saved. In 1 year! That's only 15-25min a week.
For a business having a full-time CAD user, it's a no brainer. For a private individual, maybe not so much.

The amount of busy-work I've seen a colleague perform with Eagle was immense. Every BOM had to be manually formatted and edited.
Editing schematics and PCBs was tedious. Right click -> "select group". Drag. Okay, use tool, move. Oof,  misclick. CTRL+Z. Oh lost selection.. okay again.. Right click -> "Select group". Drag. Okay, now I want to edit the footprints of all precision resistors from 0420 to 0603. Oh I need to do it 1 by 1? Okay.. right click, edit properties.. paste. Only 15 more dialogs to go..

I agree with Nctnico that KiCad has completely voided the need for Eagle. However, I never think the canonical entry of designs is a problem with these CAD tools. You can pretty much represent any schematic/PCB artwork in all CAD packages nowadays. However, how easy/quick it is to draw&edit. Altium is still miles ahead.  To me, Altium feels like editing using easy to edit sticky notes, while Eagle felt like trying to draw and revise schematics with acrylic paint and perma markers.

E.g. in Altium you have property filtering, property querying, stack based selections (instead of "tools") and selection editor. I use it all the time. I don't think Eagle has any of this, or not in the versions when I made the jump. I think in KiCad you can do certain stuff with the scripting language.. which is useful, but it's not going to be a 30sec job for the odd things to change on a PCB.
« Last Edit: May 16, 2023, 05:01:24 pm by hans »
 

Offline Zero999

  • Super Contributor
  • ***
  • Posts: 20363
  • Country: gb
  • 0999
Re: Is Altium free anywhere?
« Reply #52 on: May 16, 2023, 05:27:11 pm »
Basically, "KiCad is just as good as Altium" is a typical open-source software fanboy claim. It's just as untrue as the claims that "LibreOffice is just as good as Microsoft Office"
I don't know about Altium vs KiCAD, but I have to disagree with you about LibreOffice vs MS Office. I find MS Office virtually unusable. It's appalling. LibreOffice is much better. I've taken work home, just so I can use LibreOffice, because MS Office is too slow and clunky. It's not a matter of taking time to get used to it. I've used plenty of other GUIs in my time, not just on Windows, but other platforms and have definitely found MS Office to be one of the worst.
Forget about the user interface for a moment. (Especially since that is, to an extent, a matter of taste and familiarity.)

The issue is that LibreOffice's feature set isn't nearly as broad. It's more than enough for basic tasks, but it's simply missing many advanced things. So when people say it's "just as good", they're people who have yet to run into the absence of a feature. They don't consider that the other features are used by other people, and aren't just useless fluff.

(Also, they're much less disciplined about API stability. I worked at a software company whose product integrates with word processors. LibreOffice Writer was a constant problem, because the scripting API would often break with updates. Word's scripting and add-on APIs just worked. To this day they haven't even bothered trying to make an add-on for Writer.)

It's the same with the other examples I gave: the feature sets simply are not there. They may be adequate for casual users. (Including people who occasionally use them for professional work.) But they aren't sufficiently feature-rich for serious professional use. You need features that simply aren't there. You may be able to achieve the same end result, but it'll take more work in the less-capable program, so with time being money, professionals will pay for the more efficient tool. And that's precisely why professionals aren't going to switch to KiCad in droves anytime soon.
What features does MS Office have that you absolutely need?

I've found MS Office to be much worse than LO, when it comes to transferring files between versions. It would regularly break things more often. Pick your poison.


I didn’t say it wasn’t good enough for me so asking me for how it’s insufficient for me is not a fair question.

Even so, “absolutely need” is a different bar from “good enough”, which is basically how it’s presented.

Regardless, the situation is really simple: if it were “good enough” for most situations, it would be dominant in most environments. But it isn’t, so clearly it’s not good enough.

Ultimately, what annoys me is open source zealots who declare “it’s equivalent!” without understanding users’ needs. It’s dishonest, and that annoys me. A fair comparison acknowledges that the commercial product may have some real advantages, and the open source product may have some real disadvantages. But the fawning over the open source software is often religious, not based on actual experience in using it in a given situation.
Market dominance often has nothing to do with superiority, or even being good enough. It often comes down to vendor lock-in and that both people and organisations are reluctant to change.

I dislike zealotry in general, whether it be pushing open source, or MS Office.

I agree LO is not equivalent to MS Office. I my opinion it's better. You're completely free to disagree and that's fine. I have no intention of trying to push anyone into using it. Use whatever meets your needs. I certainly don't think open source software is necessarily better than propriety. In some cases it is: open source UNIX is widely considered superior to Windows as a server, but not so good as a desktop. I happen to use it as a desktop, but I'm in the minority, which is fine and I can see why the majority of people prefer Windows.

I'm not talking about changing over within the same organization or using something that apparently is hard work. I have used several and they are generally about the same. I'd not expect a new person to be just turning new boards out next day but if knowing one program is such a skill then uh. You got a problem.
Gnumeric is preferred by many in the scientific field. For a long time, it could handle larger spreadsheets, than Excel.
 

Offline Simon

  • Global Moderator
  • *****
  • Posts: 18118
  • Country: gb
  • Did that just blow up? No? might work after all !!
    • Simon's Electronics
Re: Is Altium free anywhere?
« Reply #53 on: May 16, 2023, 06:55:34 pm »

How are we measuring the difficulty changing over, learning the new software?
If it's taking a long time, surely it's due to low IQ? How many hours are you allotting for the new staff to get up to speed?

I saw many well-educated, intelligent EE's choke when expected to figure it out on their own. Because CADD software complexity is ever increasing and most has old legacy and clutzy UI to make it harder. No EE likes to be in a new job and starting from scratch with the tools. Or even hired in the first place - employers want the skills right off the bat.
Try sit down with AutoCAD or SolidWorks and tell me you can pick that up in a few days - no, you need the courses on it and months of experience.

Still thinking a software change is not difficult - it trashed morale, needed new libraries built, and months before people were fluent, and even then slow going.
We are assuming it's no big deal to change over and I say careful, it may no longer be trivial.

I have found that by and large ECAD is the same process and methods most of the time. It's not too difficult to get the basics if you need to.

3D CAD is what you give an example of, this is somewhat different. I was trained on Solid Edge, I then tried to use free CAD, and my god, I take issue with those that claim it is the greatest etc, it's appalling. Then I started my current job, we use Creo, of fuck! what a mess that is, I now see where freeCAD came from, beyond it's actual limitations it reminds me of creo. 3D CAD programs have nowhere near the pretty standard way of working that ECAD has, it's a different beast. Having learnt one I was more prepared to learn another, but still it can be a challenge.
 
The following users thanked this post: tooki

Offline c64

  • Frequent Contributor
  • **
  • Posts: 311
  • Country: au
Re: Is Altium free anywhere?
« Reply #54 on: May 16, 2023, 11:09:49 pm »
Altium spent a long time watching with tears in their eyes as practically the entire Chinese design market uses Altium 99SE for free, it was the industry standard, and they couldn't do anything about it.
Why do they use this particular version and not something more recent?
 

Online EEVblog

  • Administrator
  • *****
  • Posts: 39026
  • Country: au
    • EEVblog
Re: Is Altium free anywhere?
« Reply #55 on: May 18, 2023, 12:04:45 am »
Altium Designer is now 5% cheaper, they have given me the coupon code ADIL5 to share.
 :popcorn:
 

Offline tggzzz

  • Super Contributor
  • ***
  • Posts: 21227
  • Country: gb
  • Numbers, not adjectives
    • Having fun doing more, with less
Re: Is Altium free anywhere?
« Reply #56 on: May 18, 2023, 08:03:57 am »

How are we measuring the difficulty changing over, learning the new software?
If it's taking a long time, surely it's due to low IQ? How many hours are you allotting for the new staff to get up to speed?

I saw many well-educated, intelligent EE's choke when expected to figure it out on their own. Because CADD software complexity is ever increasing and most has old legacy and clutzy UI to make it harder. No EE likes to be in a new job and starting from scratch with the tools. Or even hired in the first place - employers want the skills right off the bat.
Try sit down with AutoCAD or SolidWorks and tell me you can pick that up in a few days - no, you need the courses on it and months of experience.

Still thinking a software change is not difficult - it trashed morale, needed new libraries built, and months before people were fluent, and even then slow going.
We are assuming it's no big deal to change over and I say careful, it may no longer be trivial.

I have found that by and large ECAD is the same process and methods most of the time. It's not too difficult to get the basics if you need to.

3D CAD is what you give an example of, this is somewhat different. I was trained on Solid Edge, I then tried to use free CAD, and my god, I take issue with those that claim it is the greatest etc, it's appalling. Then I started my current job, we use Creo, of fuck! what a mess that is, I now see where freeCAD came from, beyond it's actual limitations it reminds me of creo. 3D CAD programs have nowhere near the pretty standard way of working that ECAD has, it's a different beast. Having learnt one I was more prepared to learn another, but still it can be a challenge.

I've only dabbled in 3D design, but it seems to me there is a lot in common with programming paradigms and languages that support a paradigm.

There's the OpenSCAD type, where you add/subtract parameterised geometric shapes. Very similar to procedural languages.

There are constraint-based tools, where specify a subset of relationships between objects and let the tool work out the unspecified relationships. Much like declarative languages.

There are wire-mesh tools, where you squeeze and pull the mesh to get what looks right. Much like office diagram tools.

You have to choose the paradigm (and therefore tool) that best matches the way you think about and express your solution to the problem. Hence if you want to make a box, don't use a wire mesh tool; do use OpenSCAD. OTOH if you want to make a sculpture of a bust, then don't use a constraint-based tool but do use a wire mesh tool.

The analogies with programming languages is, I hope, uncontroversial.
There are lies, damned lies, statistics - and ADC/DAC specs.
Glider pilot's aphorism: "there is no substitute for span". Retort: "There is a substitute: skill+imagination. But you can buy span".
Having fun doing more, with less
 
The following users thanked this post: tooki

Offline MarginallyStable

  • Regular Contributor
  • *
  • Posts: 72
  • Country: us
Re: Is Altium free anywhere?
« Reply #57 on: May 18, 2023, 05:12:29 pm »

Quote
The fact that no open source desktop app has ever managed to dethrone its commercial counterparts...

Web browsers is but one example I feel you are incorrect in this statement.
 

Offline PlainName

  • Super Contributor
  • ***
  • Posts: 7509
  • Country: va
Re: Is Altium free anywhere?
« Reply #58 on: May 18, 2023, 07:49:49 pm »
Commercial web browsers got dethroned by Microsoft embedding IE in Windows. Nothing to do with open source.
 

Offline tooki

  • Super Contributor
  • ***
  • Posts: 13157
  • Country: ch
Re: Is Altium free anywhere?
« Reply #59 on: May 18, 2023, 09:20:34 pm »

Quote
The fact that no open source desktop app has ever managed to dethrone its commercial counterparts...

Web browsers is but one example I feel you are incorrect in this statement.
Hmmm, true, I think that is worth a half point. :) I mean, the leading browsers themselves (Chrome, Safari) aren't fully open-source, but the underlying rendering engines are. I think Firefox is the only fully open-source one that manages to crack 2% market share (and not by much).

I'm sure there are assorted little utilities and the like where open-source has nudged out commercial, but in terms of big stuff... I'm still waiting.
 

Offline tooki

  • Super Contributor
  • ***
  • Posts: 13157
  • Country: ch
Re: Is Altium free anywhere?
« Reply #60 on: May 18, 2023, 09:21:24 pm »
Commercial web browsers got dethroned by Microsoft embedding IE in Windows. Nothing to do with open source.
IE was a commercial web browser. The fact that they bundled it with Windows didn't make it non-commercial.
 

Offline switchabl

  • Frequent Contributor
  • **
  • Posts: 445
  • Country: de
Re: Is Altium free anywhere?
« Reply #61 on: May 18, 2023, 10:58:26 pm »
Blender is probably the big one on the desktop, no? It hasn't replaced commercial 3D software (which seems like an almost impossibly high bar) but I think is now considered one of the "serious" options.

Also, for better or worse, I guess Eclipse still makes up a good chunk of the IDE market (and VS Code is getting quite popular among the more lightweight code editors).
 

Offline PlainName

  • Super Contributor
  • ***
  • Posts: 7509
  • Country: va
Re: Is Altium free anywhere?
« Reply #62 on: May 18, 2023, 11:51:42 pm »
Commercial web browsers got dethroned by Microsoft embedding IE in Windows. Nothing to do with open source.
IE was a commercial web browser. The fact that they bundled it with Windows didn't make it non-commercial.

I didn't say it was non-commercial. Please don't read into my posts stuff I haven't written.
« Last Edit: May 18, 2023, 11:53:34 pm by PlainName »
 

Offline Simon

  • Global Moderator
  • *****
  • Posts: 18118
  • Country: gb
  • Did that just blow up? No? might work after all !!
    • Simon's Electronics
Re: Is Altium free anywhere?
« Reply #63 on: May 19, 2023, 08:47:03 pm »

I've only dabbled in 3D design, but it seems to me there is a lot in common with programming paradigms and languages that support a paradigm.

There's the OpenSCAD type, where you add/subtract parameterised geometric shapes. Very similar to procedural languages.

There are constraint-based tools, where specify a subset of relationships between objects and let the tool work out the unspecified relationships. Much like declarative languages.

There are wire-mesh tools, where you squeeze and pull the mesh to get what looks right. Much like office diagram tools.

You have to choose the paradigm (and therefore tool) that best matches the way you think about and express your solution to the problem. Hence if you want to make a box, don't use a wire mesh tool; do use OpenSCAD. OTOH if you want to make a sculpture of a bust, then don't use a constraint-based tool but do use a wire mesh tool.

The analogies with programming languages is, I hope, uncontroversial.

You refer to programming languages, yes open source 3D cad is still stuck there, like how I dabbled with 2D cad at school in a windows program that basically had a command line. These days serious 3D cad tools have a nice gui, it means that we can create as our imagination imagines rather than trying to remember syntax and it's easy and flexible.

The reason why Creo is so terrible is that it was very much a command line program that they shoe horned a GUI around. I read online that Creo is great when you know how to use it. I take this to mean that Creo is crap and once you know how to use it you won't admit to using something that has to be the winner of the worlds worse commercial GUI. FreeCAD follows directly in it's footsteps with the added bonus that it can't do much of the math required. I understand, the math is complex, even Solid Edge up until a few years ago would often complain of a "zero thickness manifold" this was code for, you have to surfaces that touch in an infinitesimally small point that is less than the smallest unit the software can work in, indeed 2 tangent cylinders don't actually share anything. FreeCAD has this sort of error constantly on anything sensible while it claims to be great, whilst also being at version 0.20.2, so go figure.
 

Offline nctnico

  • Super Contributor
  • ***
  • Posts: 28429
  • Country: nl
    • NCT Developments
Re: Is Altium free anywhere?
« Reply #64 on: May 19, 2023, 09:11:16 pm »

How are we measuring the difficulty changing over, learning the new software?
If it's taking a long time, surely it's due to low IQ? How many hours are you allotting for the new staff to get up to speed?

I saw many well-educated, intelligent EE's choke when expected to figure it out on their own. Because CADD software complexity is ever increasing and most has old legacy and clutzy UI to make it harder. No EE likes to be in a new job and starting from scratch with the tools. Or even hired in the first place - employers want the skills right off the bat.
Try sit down with AutoCAD or SolidWorks and tell me you can pick that up in a few days - no, you need the courses on it and months of experience.

Still thinking a software change is not difficult - it trashed morale, needed new libraries built, and months before people were fluent, and even then slow going.
We are assuming it's no big deal to change over and I say careful, it may no longer be trivial.

I have found that by and large ECAD is the same process and methods most of the time. It's not too difficult to get the basics if you need to.
Until you want to do something complex and want to have the software to do the heavy lifting for you. I have worked with PCB layout tools you can get proficient with within a few days and with tools that litterally take weeks. But the investment of time in the latter pays back in spades for complex boards.
« Last Edit: May 19, 2023, 10:40:50 pm by nctnico »
There are small lies, big lies and then there is what is on the screen of your oscilloscope.
 
The following users thanked this post: tooki

Offline FaringdonTopic starter

  • Super Contributor
  • ***
  • !
  • Posts: 2124
  • Country: gb
Re: Is Altium free anywhere?
« Reply #65 on: May 20, 2023, 04:43:27 pm »
Quote
KiCad can't hold a candle to Altium or the other professional programs. Can you make it produce excellent boards? Absolutely. Does it support you in doing so the same way Altium can? Absolutely not.
Thanks, this is interesting, by "support", you mean Altium can send out Applications Support Engineers?...and KICAD can't?.....
'Perfection' is the enemy of 'perfectly satisfactory'
 

Offline nctnico

  • Super Contributor
  • ***
  • Posts: 28429
  • Country: nl
    • NCT Developments
Re: Is Altium free anywhere?
« Reply #66 on: May 20, 2023, 05:17:54 pm »
Quote
KiCad can't hold a candle to Altium or the other professional programs. Can you make it produce excellent boards? Absolutely. Does it support you in doing so the same way Altium can? Absolutely not.
Thanks, this is interesting, by "support", you mean Altium can send out Applications Support Engineers?...and KICAD can't?.....
You are reading this wrong. The remark is about the difference in features. You can buy professional support (=help to use the software) for Kicad.
There are small lies, big lies and then there is what is on the screen of your oscilloscope.
 
The following users thanked this post: tooki

Offline Zero999

  • Super Contributor
  • ***
  • Posts: 20363
  • Country: gb
  • 0999
Re: Is Altium free anywhere?
« Reply #67 on: May 28, 2023, 08:35:36 pm »
Commercial web browsers got dethroned by Microsoft embedding IE in Windows. Nothing to do with open source.
In the 90s Microsoft had a grand plan of owning the Internet by pushing IE only standards, but their wicked little plan failed when people noticed how buggy and insecure IE was compared to the alternatives. IE was firstly de-throned by open source browsers, but mobile phones with fully functional browsers were the final nail in the coffin.
Quote
KiCad can't hold a candle to Altium or the other professional programs. Can you make it produce excellent boards? Absolutely. Does it support you in doing so the same way Altium can? Absolutely not.
Thanks, this is interesting, by "support", you mean Altium can send out Applications Support Engineers?...and KICAD can't?.....
You are reading this wrong. The remark is about the difference in features. You can buy professional support (=help to use the software) for Kicad.
Just one question given the price of Altium, I question why it's so popular. I would have thought it would be better to hire another PCB developer, even on a part time basis and get them to use KiCAD.
 

Offline PlainName

  • Super Contributor
  • ***
  • Posts: 7509
  • Country: va
Re: Is Altium free anywhere?
« Reply #68 on: May 28, 2023, 08:47:00 pm »
Commercial web browsers got dethroned by Microsoft embedding IE in Windows. Nothing to do with open source.
In the 90s Microsoft had a grand plan of owning the Internet by pushing IE only standards, but their wicked little plan failed when people noticed how buggy and insecure IE was compared to the alternatives. IE was firstly de-throned by open source browsers, but mobile phones with fully functional browsers were the final nail in the coffin.

Uh-huh. But you'll appreciate that came after IE did for the competition. So, again, open source didn't screw commercial browsers (that was IE) but stiffed IE once it was heading for domination.
 

Offline nctnico

  • Super Contributor
  • ***
  • Posts: 28429
  • Country: nl
    • NCT Developments
Re: Is Altium free anywhere?
« Reply #69 on: May 28, 2023, 08:49:15 pm »
Quote
KiCad can't hold a candle to Altium or the other professional programs. Can you make it produce excellent boards? Absolutely. Does it support you in doing so the same way Altium can? Absolutely not.
Thanks, this is interesting, by "support", you mean Altium can send out Applications Support Engineers?...and KICAD can't?.....
You are reading this wrong. The remark is about the difference in features. You can buy professional support (=help to use the software) for Kicad.
Just one question given the price of Altium, I question why it's so popular. I would have thought it would be better to hire another PCB developer, even on a part time basis and get them to use KiCAD.
You'll soon find Kicad is not as productive as a commercial package. Logistics is the keyword here. Altium's popularity is largely due to agressive pricing strategy in the early days which made it a kind of standard. But IMHO it is the Windows of PCB CAD programs. Many use it, few actually like it -especially when exposed to alternative commercial packages-. Personally I won't touch Altium; way too cumbersome, slow and frugal to use.
There are small lies, big lies and then there is what is on the screen of your oscilloscope.
 

Offline Zero999

  • Super Contributor
  • ***
  • Posts: 20363
  • Country: gb
  • 0999
Re: Is Altium free anywhere?
« Reply #70 on: May 28, 2023, 08:57:54 pm »
Commercial web browsers got dethroned by Microsoft embedding IE in Windows. Nothing to do with open source.
In the 90s Microsoft had a grand plan of owning the Internet by pushing IE only standards, but their wicked little plan failed when people noticed how buggy and insecure IE was compared to the alternatives. IE was firstly de-throned by open source browsers, but mobile phones with fully functional browsers were the final nail in the coffin.

Uh-huh. But you'll appreciate that came after IE did for the competition. So, again, open source didn't screw commercial browsers (that was IE) but stiffed IE once it was heading for domination.
IE was a commercial browser and it was screwed by open source. That was the point.

Quote
KiCad can't hold a candle to Altium or the other professional programs. Can you make it produce excellent boards? Absolutely. Does it support you in doing so the same way Altium can? Absolutely not.
Thanks, this is interesting, by "support", you mean Altium can send out Applications Support Engineers?...and KICAD can't?.....
You are reading this wrong. The remark is about the difference in features. You can buy professional support (=help to use the software) for Kicad.
Just one question given the price of Altium, I question why it's so popular. I would have thought it would be better to hire another PCB developer, even on a part time basis and get them to use KiCAD.
You'll soon find Kicad is not as productive as a commercial package. Logistics is the keyword here. Altium's popularity is largely due to agressive pricing strategy in the early days which made it a kind of standard. But IMHO it is the Windows of PCB CAD programs. Many use it, few actually like it -especially when exposed to alternative commercial packages-. Personally I won't touch Altium; way too cumbersome, slow and frugal to use.
I get that Altium is better than KiCad, but is it really worth more than an extra person? I understand that's the case for some tools, but question whether it's the case for Altium?

Forgive me. I've not done PCB design for years.
 

Offline PlainName

  • Super Contributor
  • ***
  • Posts: 7509
  • Country: va
Re: Is Altium free anywhere?
« Reply #71 on: May 28, 2023, 09:11:19 pm »
Quote
IE was a commercial browser

Only in so far as it was supplied by Microsoft. You couldn't buy it nor could the not have it. It was not commercial in the sense that the competition was: in that a user could choose to buy it or not buy, like the products it replaced.

Quote
and it was screwed by open source

It enabled open source browsers, since that was the only way to have a decent alternative to IE.

Specifically, since y'all seem to have short memories, IE was embedded to kill off Netscape Navigator, at which it was successful. Netscape threw in the towel, understandably, and the source for their browser became Firefox.
 

Offline Someone

  • Super Contributor
  • ***
  • Posts: 5156
  • Country: au
    • send complaints here
Re: Is Altium free anywhere?
« Reply #72 on: May 28, 2023, 10:56:08 pm »
Quote
KiCad can't hold a candle to Altium or the other professional programs. Can you make it produce excellent boards? Absolutely. Does it support you in doing so the same way Altium can? Absolutely not.
Thanks, this is interesting, by "support", you mean Altium can send out Applications Support Engineers?...and KICAD can't?.....
You are reading this wrong. The remark is about the difference in features. You can buy professional support (=help to use the software) for Kicad.
Just one question given the price of Altium, I question why it's so popular. I would have thought it would be better to hire another PCB developer, even on a part time basis and get them to use KiCAD.
You'll soon find Kicad is not as productive as a commercial package. Logistics is the keyword here. Altium's popularity is largely due to agressive pricing strategy in the early days which made it a kind of standard. But IMHO it is the Windows of PCB CAD programs. Many use it, few actually like it -especially when exposed to alternative commercial packages-. Personally I won't touch Altium; way too cumbersome, slow and frugal to use.
I get that Altium is better than KiCad, but is it really worth more than an extra person? I understand that's the case for some tools, but question whether it's the case for Altium?

Forgive me. I've not done PCB design for years.
Altium had a very powerful set of tools from early on (say 200x) but haven't really added that much since (hence why many shops are happy using old versions such as '99). KiCad is rapidly catching up and will soon be a very viable alternative, 10 years ago it was still a toy, 5 years ago it was functional but still had many gaps, give it a little more time....
 

Offline Someone

  • Super Contributor
  • ***
  • Posts: 5156
  • Country: au
    • send complaints here
Re: Is Altium free anywhere?
« Reply #73 on: May 28, 2023, 11:04:28 pm »
Altium spent a long time watching with tears in their eyes as practically the entire Chinese design market uses Altium 99SE for free, it was the industry standard, and they couldn't do anything about it.
Why do they use this particular version and not something more recent?
Being from the era of offline software it was easy to share licenses without tracking. People got used to the software and it stuck around as there was no need for anything more.
 

Offline thm_w

  • Super Contributor
  • ***
  • Posts: 7527
  • Country: ca
  • Non-expert
Re: Is Altium free anywhere?
« Reply #74 on: May 29, 2023, 08:55:17 pm »
I get that Altium is better than KiCad, but is it really worth more than an extra person? I understand that's the case for some tools, but question whether it's the case for Altium?

Forgive me. I've not done PCB design for years.

Where are you going to hire someone for $5k per year?
Its not worth an extra person no, maybe 5-20% of your PCB time or something.
Profile -> Modify profile -> Look and Layout ->  Don't show users' signatures
 
The following users thanked this post: tooki


Share me

Digg  Facebook  SlashDot  Delicious  Technorati  Twitter  Google  Yahoo
Smf